Curse Writer’s Block

Mac isn't sure he likes Jack's attitude. Their captors like it even less.

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Lil doodle based on that one scene in s1e14 where the FBI bust in and Jack pulls out his gun and starts yelling back and forth with them while Mac just raises his hands like a reasonable person who’s not trying to get himself shot :p

Thinking about Jack's halo of lethargic trash, and his teammate sitting across from him trying to not look too concerned ("each day, it's like a little mission, okay? Now, you string enough of those little mission together, that's a life.")

Thinking of Mac barely more than a kid, lying on a military bunk because he needs to do something that mattered, because his own life wasn't enough. Just trying to find a mission, a calling. Just trying to lose himself in it.

Thinking about "he's probably saved my life more, all added up" and "cover me" and "you know I would never let anything happen to you" and "well, at least we have each other."

Thinking about Jack singing badly and dancing badly to make Mac crack a smile despite the death that's always behind the both of them. Thinking about Mac telling Dalton Sr "I'm gonna bring him back in one piece, alright?"

Thinking about Jack tumbling headfirst into every explosion and fire and disaster to stand by Mac in the center of it. Thinking of Mac sticking his hands into fire to pull Jack out of it.

Thinking of how Mac gave Jack a mission when he was ready to turn back. Thinking about how Jack gave Mac a life that mattered more than the mission. Thinking about how two people found exactly what they needed but didn't want, fighting tooth and nail against it and then with even more fervor for it.

Thinking about how sixty-four days can turn into forever.

MAC: When I was a, uh, kid he [James] bought me a Walkman and told me it was for a surprise ski trip. I thought it was a real father-son vacation. Well, no. It was just an opportunity to teach me survival skills, like how to make an avalanche beacon out of my new portable radio. JACK: So you feel my pain when it comes to sacrificing electronics?

Currently haunted by the story of Mac's dad giving him a Walkman, and then purposefully putting him in a situation where he had to take it apart.

Like, what'd you mean you gave a kid a present in order to force him to break it down the line? What'd you mean you watched his face light up as he opened the wrapping paper, and carried it around everywhere, and was so excited about going on a father-son trip with you? What'd you mean you gave him something precious -- just so he'd have to sacrifice it? Why do you think teaching hard lessons is all there is to being a father?

And wow what a brilliant bit of characterization, because suddenly Mac's penchant for cavalierly breaking everything around him for the sake of the mission has even more dimension. His very first meeting with Jack is a fight because he'd been screwing around with Jack's rifle. The trail of carnage he leaves behind him: snapped sunglasses, and gutted phones, and taking apart whatever's around him to get the job done. Things are just tools to utilize towards achieving an objective, you can't tie your emotions to them, you can't care about them. Once you can take something apart, it can only amount to the sum of its components.

Jack's apartment is a shrine to his eclectic and beloved belongings, material and sentimental. Mac's place is full of a morphing hodgepodge of creations he's ruthlessly broken down and put back together over and over again.

In retrospect, it makes how snippy and impatient he is about Jack not wanting his stuff broken so interesting. It also makes him sitting in the passenger seat, intently working on fixing Jack's sunglasses hit even harder.

D'you think sometimes he's lodged into that brutally practical headspace, aggravated by Jack's dragging his feet and whining about his precious stuff? It's only stuff, why is Jack being such a pain about it?

D'you think when he looked up from the broken pair of glasses in his hands, he saw the hurt in Jack's eyes, and all of the sudden his chest filled with a decade-dormant ache of loosing something that mattered to him?

A fic written 2 years ago is NOT OLD. Two years is nothing. Two years ago was yesterday.